Fifty versions of the truth

Before we all get carried away by Stan G’s indictment of The Nation for printing editorial “rubbish”, and simultaneously praising “the excellent” US investigative journalist Seymour Hersh, let’s pause for breath. Mr Hersh, always a fascinating read to be sure, was the guy who told us that Osama bin Laden was under house arrest by the Pakistani military at the time of his assassination in 2011 and that the US was largely responsible for the shooting down by Russia of Korean flight 007 in 1983.

  To his supporters, Mr Hersh can do no wrong. To his critics, he is a highly gullible reporter who often uses unnamed sources to “prove” a point, for example that president John Kennedy was a narcotics-using, mafia-supporting secret bigamist, etc. In other words this writer makes his money by advocating conspiracy theories.  Doubtless there will always be those who believe that Assad’s chemical attacks were the work of the Syrian opposition, just as there are those who are convinced that the swimming pools and recreation facilities at Auschwitz were there for the benefit of the inmates rather than of the SS staff.

  Mr Hersh once said, “There are 50 versions of the truth.” Indeed, there are.

Barry Kenyon